There is something that unites us humans as a species, we can think in very different ways, but if there is something that we all agree on, it is that it doesn't matter who you are or what part of the world you live in, if you are human, you love coffee or some other drink that has the magic molecule, caffeine, and if you don't, I have my doubts that you are human.
How true is it that it helps you wake up and think clearly and why are there people who believe that they cannot function without their first cup of coffee in the morning, in fact, 80% of humans drink a caffeinated beverage daily, let's start there, the stimulating qualities of coffee come from caffeine, but what does caffeine do to our brain that we cannot start our day without it? To begin with, this molecule is a force of nature.
Many plants have independently evolved mechanisms to produce it. It is believed that everything begins with a mutation that alters the adenine molecule that is abundant in all living organisms. It is the letter A of our genetic material and our body uses it to build other more complex molecules. The plants that by “accident” began to produce this altered form of adenine killed the bugs that ate them and the plants that competed with them.
These plants poisoned the soil around them and their predators with caffeine and that is why plants all over the world that are not related to each other produce the same magic molecule, so, caffeine is poison, yes, insecticide and pesticide and if you consumed it in the same amount as an insect in proportion to your body mass, you would already be up there listening to Saint Peter, in fact, you only need 4 grams of pure concentrated caffeine and you're gone.
But little poison does not kill and on our brain it has an interesting effect, it takes away our fatigue, caffeine is found in the coffee plantations where the coffee is produced, which is native to the Horn of Africa and Arabia, but it is also in tea, which is native to China and East Asia, cocoa from Mesoamerica, guarana from the Amazon, yerba mate from South America, Yaupon from the southeastern United States and kola nut from West Africa.
The humans of each of these places discovered in parallel the anti-fatigue effects of caffeine and incorporated it into their culture and today we even produce caffeine synthetically, that is, without plants, to put it in soft drinks and energy drinks; but how does it work? When we are tired, especially at the end of the day, a byproduct of ATP accumulates in our body, the molecule that is responsible for transporting the energy produced by our mitochondria from the nutrients in our food and the oxygen we breathe.
This ATP, when it delivers the energy to its destination, is normally recycled, recharged with energy and the cycle is restarted, but at the end of the day, the mitochondria tired of recharging the ATP begin to leave unloaded ATP molecules lying everywhere, we call that spent ATP adenosine, and your body cannot continue functioning like this, the mitochondria get tired, but fortunately to prevent this we have special neurons in our brain that measure the amount of adenocin released, that is, they measure our tiredness.
These neurons have many adenosine receptors in their membrane, these receptors are like a lock and the adenocin has the right shape to enter it like a key, when that happens, a protein is released inside the cell that is responsible for transmitting the signal of fatigue, when we are tired, we have too much adenosine floating outside of those neurons that couple to all their receptors and saturate them, sending a very strong signal of fatigue, that is when your eyes close and the puppet effect arrives. rag, it's your brain telling you, "Go to sleep."
Once we fall asleep, our body repairs itself, the mitochondria rest and in the morning we will be ready for a new day, but if you drank caffeine, that is not the case. The caffeine molecule has a shape similar enough to adenocin to be able to enter the receptors of the neurons, but different enough not to activate the mechanism that produces the fatigue signal, that is, the caffeine stays there filling the receptors of the neurons without activating them and the adenosine continues to accumulate because it has nowhere to go. get in So you can be very tired, accumulating loose adenocin in your body and your mitochondria breaking down from working so hard, but your neurons don't notice because all their receptors are blocked.
But our body has the incredible ability to adapt, so when the receptors in the neurons are full of caffeine and they don't receive any adenosine, he says, "there's something strange here," you have to print more adenosine receptors and that way the neurons can receive the adenosine and calculate how tired we are, that's how developing a tolerance to caffeine works.
You can continue drinking the same amount of caffeine, but the anti-fatigue effect is lost because your body has already adapted, seeing how amazing our body is.
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